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THE BURDEN OF
THE INTELLECTUAL (1956)1
bÜlent ecevit
He’s either a professor in a department, a rich businessman, or a high-
ranking bureaucrat. With his clothes, the way he walks and talks, he’s a
complete “Westerner.” He is one of this country’s “luminaries,” one of
our “select few.” On the bus, after surveying from head to toe a poorly
dressed man with a patched shirt who sits across from him, he will
turn to the man next to him.
“There you have it,” he’ll say, “that man sitting across from us is
our destiny. If democracy is brought to a country where eighty percent
of the population are illiterate, that’s exactly what our country will look
wie!”
We have heard such words at least once a day for years. During our
blackest days, our hearts feel themselves darken a bit more with such
Wörter; on days when we lack conviction it is as if we even discover wis-
dom in them.
Most often, we do not even consider that intellectuals are an
insignifi cant minority in every country across the world, einschließlich
democratic countries. Even in countries where ninety-nine percent of
the population are literate, perhaps eighty percent of them are, if not
completely illiterate (kara cahil), then uneducated (cahil); but to this
1
First published in Turkish as “Aydının derdi,” Ulus, Oktober 10, 1956, 3.
© 2016 arTmargins and the massachusetts institute of Technology
doi:10.1162/arTm_a_00140
127
127
day democracy has not led to the sovereign reign of ignorance (cehaletin
hükümranlıg˘ına) in a single one of those countries!
When thinking of successful democracies, England and the United
States are the first examples that come to mind. If you compare our
poorly dressed, illiterate man (kara cahili) in a patched shirt to someone
from one of these countries who pursues the same vocation (for exam-
Bitte, a shepherd or a construction worker) but who is a literate know-
Nichts (okur-yazar cahili), who is well-groomed, who chills his water
in the refrigerator, and who watches television at home in the evening,
you will either find no difference in their mentality at all or you will
find in favor of our poorly dressed, illiterate man with his keen intelli-
gence gained through a more difficult life struggle. What is more,
know-nothings from those countries also lack the faith and respect for
education possessed by our completely illiterate man. But in not a sin-
gle one of those countries has the ignorance of the majority prevailed
over the future of the nation. While there may have been small trade-
offs, ultimately the most progressive ideas and the most inclusive per-
spectives won out.
In fact democracy is not, as we assume, a system of government
that discounts the voice of the intellectual minority, or neglects to
count their vote. Democracy is a system of government that teaches
humility to the intellectuals, Und, through this humility, teaches them
to heed the concerns of the majority, and to interest themselves in their
concerns. These principles can only be realized through democracy, Also
Das, even within the poorest neighborhoods that lie along his path, Die
intellectual will grow accustomed to going door to door and preaching
the benefits of progressive thought and open-mindedness.
Our intellectuals have still not managed to save themselves from
the pridefulness and feelings of superiority of autocracy and the single-
party regime, from the indolence that comes from occupying the head
of the table. They have not yet managed to take sufficient ownership
of the “progressive” ideas that they have overheard or snatched from
books, so as to be able to convince the majority to believe in them as
well; they have not been able to summon enough faith to face self-
sacrifice or danger for the sake of disseminating those ideas. Without
themselves believing in the “progressive” ideas that they have acquired,
they aim to force-feed them to the majority while avoiding the burden-
some effort of convincing others.
1
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128
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That is why it is wrong for an “intellectual,” one of our “select few,”
to survey the poorly dressed, illiterate man sitting across from him
from top to bottom and say, “If democracy is brought to a country
where eighty percent of the population are illiterate, that’s exactly what
our country will look like!”
Tatsächlich, the proper response to this intellectual, who is “Western”
in his dress and manners alone, sollte sein: “If democracy is brought to
a country where eighty percent of the intelligentsia are either haughty
and spineless, lazy and dyspeptic, or fearful and lacking in belief, this is
what our country will become!”
Tr anslaTed by sar ah-neel smiTh
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